We have to go back in time
by MuskokaLife14
Summary: I have done what all have done. A story where the main characters go and read the books! DISCLAIMER: I do not in anyway own the Percy Jackson series sadly :(
1. Chapter 1

It was winter council up on mount Olympus and everything was going as usual.  
"Mother Rhea always liked you best"  
"You think it's acceptable to keep my daughter traped down there?"  
"It's not my fault"  
"Stop flirting with my hunters!"  
"But Artie-"  
"Don't call me 'Artie!"  
"Air disasters are always more spectacular than sea disasters"  
"Why must you have thrown me off Olympus mother?"  
"It was one wood nymph. How can you blame me?"  
Like I said, as usual.  
But then a blinding white flash filled the room and 5 people appeared.  
The arguments in the room stopped immediately. Nobody said anything as the 5 people looked around the room and at each other. All of a sudden, a boy about 17 with dark black hair and green eyes ran towards a girl with bright blond hair and stormy gray eyes. They locked themselves in an embrace and the girl started crying softly. Zeus looked surprised at the five teenagers in the room. As Aphrodite cooed Zeus let out a loud: "A-hem". The girl with spiky black hair and silver jewelry on went over to the two and whispered something in their ears. The two broke apart immediately blushing as they looked up at the astounded gods. "You summoned us?" the blushing blond asked. "We did nothing of the sort!" Zeus cried frustrated that he didn't know what was going on. Another slightly less bright light filled the room as a note and book appeared on the floor in front of the lost teens. "Sorry for the interruption on your 'discussions'" the blond read. "We have sent these demi-gods back in time with his book because you will need to know what is going to happen. Do not harm these demi-gods or it will severely impact the future for the worse.  
Yours truly, Apollo and Hermes.  
P.S. We might send some more so look out."  
Apollo and Hermes high-fived and said in unison "We're awesome"  
"Well, I guess we read the books" Zeus said hesitantly. "Introduce yourselves demi-gods."  
The blond stepped forward. "Annabeth Chase. Daughter of Athena, Hero of Olympus, Architect of Olympus."  
Athena's eyes went wide. "But you're only eight now."  
A satyr stepped forward. "Grover Underwood. Hero of Olympus, Lord of the wild." The spiky haired girl and Annabeth smiled.  
The girl with the spiky black hair stepped forward next. "Thalia Grace. Hero of Olympus, Daughter of Zeus, Lieutenant of the Hunters."  
"You're supposed to be a tree" Zeus whispered.  
"What happened to Zoë?" Artemis said with a worried expression on her face.  
A boy younger than the rest stepped forward. "Nico DiAngelo. Son of Hades. Hero of Olympus." Seeing the angry face on Zeus he added "But I was born before the oath and put in the Lotus Hotel Casino."  
"I thought I told you to kill him Hades!" Zeus angrily said to his brother.  
"You expect me to kill my own son?" Hades replied with a shrug.  
The last boy, still blushing I might add, stepped forward and said "Percy Jackson. Son of Poseidon, Hero of Olympus.  
"Poseidon!"  
"Okay okay I'm sorry I broke the oath." Poseidon said throwing his hand up in the air. "But the note said we can't hurt him!"  
"So do we read the books?" Apollo questioned?  
"Well duh!" Artemis said. "Lady Hestia would you?" She gestured.  
"Of course." She replied as bean bags and couches appeared.  
The half-bloods eagerly sat down, Nico and Grover in beanbags, Thalia sprawled out on one love seat and Percy and Annabeth took the other.  
Athena glared at their seating arrangements.  
"Who wants to read first?" Poseidon asked?  
"I might as well" Hera said as the book flew off the floor towards her.  
The gods and demi-gods got comfortable as Hera's soothing voice started to read.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter one**

**I accidently vaporize my pre-algebra teacher. **

"Accidently?" Apollo snorted.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.  
If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:  
**"Oh no! He's giving advice!" Thalia exclaimed with a smirk on her face.**  
close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.  
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.  
**"You can say that again" Nico said.**  
If you're a normal kid reading this because you think it fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.  
But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before _they_ sense it too, and they'll come for you.  
**"Dramatic" Grover teased.**  
Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You did-"Apollo started.

"Don't you dare finish that." Artemis threatened.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"No shit Sherlock" Hermes said under his breath.

Athena gave him a death glare.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes" Grover, Thalia, Nico and Annabeth all said together.

"Well thanks for the faith guys" Percy said pouting.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"But you admitted it!" Thalia retorted.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Bunch of little brats" Dionysus commented.

"You're listening?" Hephaestus mocked.

"With you talking so loud I can't focus on my magazine." He said returing to his beloved 'Wine Weekly'

**I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Sounds like Chiron" Athena commented.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

Nico snorted.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.  
**"Who wouldn't aim for the school bus?" Ares said surprised as the room broke out in laughter.**  
And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.  
**Cue more laughter.**  
And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.  
**"Awee. I wanted to hear more!" Apollo said wiping a tear out of his eye.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.  
**"That's not possible for Perce" Grover said knowingly.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Ew what kind of lunch is that!?" Aphrodite said disgusted.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.  
**"Well thanks for thinking highly of me" Grover said, insulted.  
"I'm sorry bud. I didn't mean to be mean" Percy said genuinely sorry.  
Artemis was surprised. She had prepared her to hate this boy. _He's not so bad_ she thought. **  
He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Blew it!" Annabeth laughed with Thalia.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it."**

"Yes. Fight already. This book is boring" Complained Ares.

** I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

Poseidon paled.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Even more than that" Athena commented.

"I know" Percy said.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

_What is my fury doing there? _Hades thought.

_What is dad's fury doing there? _Nico thought.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Seriously Grover?" Thalia laughed.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"Caught!" Hermes said. "Rookie mistake."

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The elder gods shuddered at the memory.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"God!?" Zeus and Hades exclaimed.

"I'm sure Chiron will correct him." Athena comforted.

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

"See?"

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"Biggest war in history and he sums it up in two paragraphs." Demeter pointed out.

**Some snickers from the group.**

"But he got it right. Why are they laughing?" Athena questioned.  
"Sixth grade kids. Immature." Hephaestus replied.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"She's got a point. Unless you're a demi-god, why do you need this?" Nico asked.  
"For the satisfactory of the knowledge." Athena replied with her head high. "Just because you don't necessarily use it every day, doesn't mean it's not important."  
"Well said" Poseidon agreed.  
Athena looked taken aback from the compliment from Poseidon.  
he gestured for Hera to continue.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Ohhhh. Busted." Hermes snickered.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"AAhhh! I think like a goat!" Hermes laughed.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Thanks Mr. Sunshine"

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Like all boys" Artemis groaned.

"You know you love us Artie" Apollo grinned

"Don't call me that!"

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

"Classic Chiron" Annabeth muttered.

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Knowing Chiron, he probably taught her." Said Athena.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Whoa. What are you two fighting about now?" Hermes said baffled.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"Of course"

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."**

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

A moment of silence, then everyone blurted out laughing.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Mama's boy" Ares muttered.

"Excuse me?" Poseidon said glaring.

"Nothing, nothing" He said scared of his uncle.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

"Wonder what that would look like in my workshop" Hephaestus thought out loud.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Auuugh this girl is gross." Aphrodite groaned.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave?" Zeus said as he raised his eyebrow.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

**"-the water-"**

**"-like it grabbed her-"**

"How did you not know Grover?" Hermes Asked.

"I wasn't quite sure. I didn't actually see it." Grover admitted.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"Never guess your punishment!" Hermes yelped. "Rule number six."

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"Well duh."

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

"Awwe so loyal." Aphrodite smiled.

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But-"**

**"You-will-stay-here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

_Yup, definitely my fury. But what did he do that I had to send it? _Hades pondered.

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. **

"Don't wanna be on the receiving end of that." Nico shuddered.

"Even I'll admit, it's bad." Thalia agreed.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"Monster?" Poseidon asked worriedly.

"Yup" Percy answered grimly.

Poseidon paled more.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Really Chiron?" Dionysus surprisingly said.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"Oh no"

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"You did the safe thing?" Thalia mocked.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"Why wouldn't you want to read the book?" Athena asked shocked.

"Are you sure you're not my son?" Hermes asked smiling.

"Unless you can control the ocean too." Percy replied ignoring Athena.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"HADES! YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON!" Poseidon yelled as he started to get up from his throne.

Hades disappeared into the shadow of his throne and his bodiless voice said "It's not my fault. I don't know what he did yet."

"WHEN YOU COME OUT I SWEAR..." Poseidon yelled and left the threat hanging.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"You had used it already?" Annabeth asked her boyfriend.

"Yeah. I totally forgot about that." He said with a strange look on his face like he was trying to remember something.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"Naturally? You must be a good sword fighter." Ares commented.

Percy smirked. "Don't you know it." Annabeth laughed which gave the gods a confused look. "You'll see." She said as Hera began to read again.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

The room erupted in cheers.

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Apollo said confused.

**I said, "Who?"**

"Ahh! I think like Percy!"

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

"The mist was that strong?" Athena wondered.

"Ten drachmas it's Grover" Hermes bet.

"You're on." Apollo challenged.

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Pay up"

Apollo huffed. But, a bets a bet.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?" **

"Now Chiron's a better liar." Hermes said approvingly.

"That's the end." Hera said.


End file.
